


Impromptu Vacation

by vmprsm



Series: LC Destin [7]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, First Order life, HUX CAN HAVE FRIENDS IF HE WANTS, Medical Examination, Original Character(s), Pre-TFA, Starkiller Base, Temporary Blindness, The First Order (Star Wars) - Freeform, Trauma, fs-7 is a droid series i entirely made up, if this isnt a slow burn idk what is, temporary deafness, the tag i will always put:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9097177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vmprsm/pseuds/vmprsm
Summary: Well, that didn't go according to design, did it.





	

Being disoriented generally was not something that people enjoyed. Often, it was something that people very much did not enjoy. Most often, they were too disoriented to know whether they were enjoying anything at the moment. 

 

Skyler was all of the above. She opened her eyes and looked out blearily, not able to discern what anything was with the starbursts flashing in her vision, and too disoriented to try very hard. Somewhere, niggling behind the starbursts and pain, was probably her intelligent mind, saying she did not enjoy this, not at all. 

 

But that part wasn’t really available at the moment. She groaned in pain, and the beeping of something, very faintly, followed. 

 

“Wha-?” A distant slamming noise had her flinching, and a wave of nausea rolled through her belly. She was cold.

 

“I want a full damage report,  _ including _ the cause of the explosion, sent to my pad within one hour. And a list of everyone who worked on it prior. Now!”

 

Squeezing her eyes shut, still unable to see clearly, she tried to focus on only one sense at a time to minimize her confusion. The voice was familiar, but muffled, and remembering much of anything past the last few seconds was basically impossible. 

 

“Lieutenant Commander, can you hear me?”

 

It would be good to reply, but she really couldn’t, not well. The idea of opening her mouth or moving her head made her nausea worse. 

 

“I’m going to need you to try and open your eyes, so we can check for damage.”

 

Slowly, her eyes opened over a major effort of will. A light flashed across her vision and she yelled, closing them again and moving her hands to protect them. 

 

“Commander! You’re safe. Let the doctor examine you.”

 

She knew that voice, but it was distorted...slowly, the hands lowered, muscles aching, and she reopened her eyes. 

 

The lights flashed across again, hovering in each for a few seconds. Muffled sounds of talking, and then a louder: “Well, put her in a tank then! Do you believe she can do her job without vision?”

 

“Of course not sir, but there’s a technician in the tank and we only have one, second degree burns on-”

 

“Take them out. Use patches, figure  _ something _ out. This is an order.”

 

“We could shuttle her back to the flagship  sir,”

 

“Shuttle the technician back. You are not wasting any more of her time.”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

The bed she was on shook as it was detached from the wall, a wave of vertigo overtook her senses, and Skyler let herself slip back into unconsciousness before she felt any worse, if that were possible. 

 

-

 

Shuffling noises woke her again. She was warm, and dry, and nothing hurt so much as it was she barely felt anything at all. It was like floating, a lack of pressure. 

 

As the shuffling came to rest beside the bed, she looked over, the dreaminess of her movement accompanied by no sickness, a fact she thanked the stars for. 

 

The soft beep of the heart monitor picked up as she found she couldn’t see, her vision was entirely black. 

 

“Calm down.” A voice said gently, clear and crisp. She knew who it was.

 

“Hux?” Destin asked, voice shaking like a child. It wasn’t intentional, but calming down was very difficult given the circumstance. She reached out blindly.

 

He caught her hand, holding it between both of his. He held it firm and steady but she couldn’t tell if he was wearing gloves or not. “Calm down,” he repeated, “you have bandages over your eyes. The bacta did its job, but your eyes will need time to readjust to light. You can hear me?”

 

“Fine.” She replied, the tremor in her speech still strong. “I...I can’t feel much.”

 

“A side effect of prolonged bacta suspension, I’ve been told. It will wear off.”

 

“There was,” she paused.

 

“Do you remember?”

 

She took a deep breath. “Yes. A test inspection of a peripheral shield generator. It overloaded.”

 

“Seven technicians and an engineer died.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she replied, quiet.

 

She heard him scoff. “For what? You didn’t build it. It wasn’t the design, I’ve made sure of it.” 

 

Destin didn’t say anything else, just focused on the almost phantom-like feeling of his hands so she wouldn’t feel like she was floating away. 

 

There was silence for a few moments, and then he said, “I should let the medics put you back to sleep. Once the bacta effects wear off and you regain some clarity, they will brief you on your condition.” She heard another shuffle, then the feeling of his hands slipping away. In desperation she tightened her grip and he paused. “I can’t stay,” he sounded apologetic, “I called a meeting of the lead engineers to reorganize the build schedule, I must go. I will be back.”

 

Letting go slowly, she felt his hand touch her shoulder, brief and warm. “Rest.”

 

She did.

 

-

 

“How many cycles have I been in here, exactly?”

 

Destin was propped against a pillow, the bandages wrapping her arms rubbing on the medbay sheets. The room was plain, but nothing on Starkiller had much finesse anyways. The lights were low to aid in her comfort. Hux sat in a chair by the bed. He was looking at his datapad, very clearly trying to seem uninterested as he swiped to new screens. “One standard week. Three days for the tank, two in an induced sleep, two awake. You’re to be released tomorrow, but are being put on bedrest for another week, with a psychological evaluation at the end of that time.”

 

“For what?” She knew, but would he say it?

 

“To assess your continued ability to complete your assignment.”

 

Of course he would. The General did not ever mince words, dance around the point, or otherwise hide from an uncomfortable conversation. It was refreshing to her, but often quite alarming to others. 

 

“What do you think?” Destin asked, trying to sound sincere. 

 

He glanced up, looked her over in her hospital whites and messy hair with bangs partly in her eyes, and looked back down. “I think it is not everyone who has a shield generator blow up in their face and survive. A bit of trauma from such an event would not be unexpected.”

 

Not unexpected, but not acceptable either. If she was now afraid, even subconsciously, of the very machines she was brought here to build and fit together, she would be unfit to keep her command. That was easy to understand. But General Hux had been gone for months, and she more wanted his answer to gauge his emotions. So far, it was less his words and more his body language that gave him away. 

 

“Hmm.” She said simply, and leaned further into her pillows. She picked at the wraps on one arm. During the incident, she had thrown her hands up to shield her face while she curled inward, an automatic reaction, and shrapnel had cut through her jacket and sliced her arms to ribbons. The bacta had healed the worst of the injuries, but the faint scars were still solidifying, and they itched something terrible. The same could be said for the bandages on her legs, really she had become in the last two days very used to being itchy. Her hands, by the grace of the gods, had been mostly unharmed through the leather of her gloves, though those had been shredded, the weather resistant padding sticking out in tufts. It was truly a miracle she had just returned from a stint out into the frigid land surrounding the base, and had been too busy to bother switching her gloves back. 

 

“Stop that.” Said Hux sharply. 

 

“I’m not doing anything.” She retorted. She figured having a private room in medbay entitled her to some sass. 

 

“You are. Quit. You’ll make the scars worse if you scratch.”

 

“It’s not as if anyone will see them. I’ve learned the First Order doesn’t really do casual Friday.” Pushing it, but true. 

 

He gave her an exasperated look that she could discern even in the low light. “I could have something to say about that, but I’d be remiss to fire you when we’ve put so much effort into your health.”

 

“Hmm,”

 

An awkward silence descended, but Destin, in a way, did not want to fix it. The last things she remembered before waking up in this bed was the wailing alarm of the overload, an explosion so fast she barely felt the heat, and pain. She knew he had been here, commanding the aftermath and directing the medics to looking after her best care, but what was he here  _ for? _ What was the reason, under it all? What did he take a ship under emergency from the  _ Finalizer _ , half a system away, for?

 

She knew that most often, the answers to those kinds of questions were complex, and not at all single answer. It wasn’t fair to expect anyone to have a single reason that aligned with what you wanted, but was it fair to want that to be the  _ major _ reason?

 

Skyler resisted the urge to physically shake the silly thoughts out of her brain, and tried to suppress them instead. The medication must have made her loopy, there was no basis to desire that sort of...care. There was nothing stated, and therefore there was nothing to be expected. Even if, some days, when it was particularly cold and her gloves weren’t helping, or when it seemed like everything was going wrong, she would think back to the big hole in the center of Starkiller they stood at, quiet and powerful, and  _ together _ . It didn’t matter.

 

_ “Skyler.” _

 

She snapped to attention, blinking rapidly. Had Hux just...used her first name? Apparently so, as he was looking at her irately, and expectantly. 

 

“I...I’m sorry, sir. I spaced out.”

 

He huffed shortly. “Can’t be angry about that,” he took another breath, “I  _ asked _ you if you’d like me to request a further extended stay in medbay. If you’re not yet up to caring for yourself. I’m aware that females, and officers in general, tend to under-report pain, and I know you particularly are stubborn. I won’t have you collapsing in your quarters because you want to fix the shield generator this week as opposed to next.”

 

“I don’t want us to fall behind sir,” she told him dutifully. There was no way to accurately assess if she needed more time. She knew how to work through discomfort, and besides, she was still a bit preoccupied with the name thing. She hadn’t heard her first name spoken since she enlisted. It was almost surprising he knew it. More surprising that he  _ said _ it. She wondered what his was…

 

“Well?”

 

This time she really did shake her head, automatic, and stopped quickly. She gave him a sheepish little smile. “Apologies. Again. Despite my apparent inability to focus, I believe I can care for myself in my recovery week.”

 

Hux looked dubious. “As you say.”

 

“Sir, have I ever advised you incorrectly?”

 

“You aren’t advising me, you’re advising yourself.  _ That _ I have known to go somewhat sideways.” He gave her a small smirk.

 

Blushing, Destin glanced back down to the white sheets. It was a fair point, she tended to go off a little half-cocked sometimes if she thought the associated risk was hers alone. “Yes. Sir.”

 

There was a long pause, with only the beeping of the monitors to accompany their breathing. Hux spoke. “Destin, I’m not displeased with you. Your work has always been exemplary, and though your demeanor is not the First Order standard, it is...refreshing. I spend a lot of my days around people who simply tell me ‘yes sir’ as opposed to a real response. I don’t expect you to be one of those people, not at this point.”

 

“Yes...General?”

 

His responding expression was bored.

 

“I mean, yes, I do know what you mean, and this is not one of those situations…” She faded off, unsure.

 

He waved his hand as if to say ‘ _ go on’ _ .

 

“...Hux?”

 

“That wasn’t difficult was it?”

 

She huffed a laugh, careful of her still-sore chest. The concussive force of the blast had felt like a punch to her whole torso. “I didn’t want to be disrespectful.”

 

“Of course,” he replied, and she caught that glance of regalness from him again as he leaned back, waving a hand to brush off her statement, “but in private meetings I am giving you permission to speak less formally.”

 

“Well then.” Destin said, unsure of what else to say. Then, a thought occured, and her Core world bullheadedness let the words tumble out before she could stop them. “But why?”

 

Surprise crossed over his face, and then transformed back into his regular faint amusement that seemed to be the default when she said something strange or forward. It seemed to happen a lot. Suddenly she was glad he had been on the flagship these past few months. 

 

“Why? I thought that might be obvious.”

 

Destin shrugged gently. “I’m injured? Focus and all that.” Cheeky, but he seemed to take it in stride.

 

“I’m sure it will come to you.” He smirked, and Destin scrunched her nose. It was unfair for him to tease  _ back _ . 

 

“Rest more, Destin.” He said finally, standing up and brushing invisible dust from this jacket.

 

“Hux-” she said, then paused, surprised by the anxiety in her voice and the strangeness of his name in her mouth. Thinking it was one thing, speaking was an entirely different animal.

 

“Yes?” More dust fell unseen from his trousers. 

 

“Will you be...returning to the  _ Finalizer _ ?” What Destin was about to say was  _ leaving _ but her professionalism won out.

 

Looking up, the General seemed to be finished with his obsessive cleaning. “Not yet. Someone needs to look over your sector and select new crew to replace those lost in the explosion while you’re indisposed.”

 

“I can do that from my bed,” she protested.

 

“Unnecessary.” He stepped back up to the cot, eyes clear and staring. “ _ Rest _ . I want you in top form by next week, and I know you won’t be if you stay up replying to messages and reorganizing schedules. This is an order.”

 

“Well blast,” she cursed, and enjoyed the mild shock of his face, “if it’s an  _ order _ , then.”

 

Rolling his eyes, he backed away, but not before resting a hand on her shoulder briefly. The feeling was familiar, but distantly, like deja vu. 

 

-

 

Being cleared for bedrest the next day would have felt more like getting out of medbay if a droid didn’t follow her all the way to her quarters. She spoke Binary, well rather she understood it, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

 

“Listen,” she said, reaching her door and turning around. She swayed a little, feet unused to walking after a week being suspended and then lying down, and the droid beeped, concerned. “Listen. You can go back to medbay, I’ll get one of my crew to bring me meals, and I can monitor my own vitals. No need for you.”

 

_ “I have been ordered to assist you and insure your recovery.” _

 

“That’s lovely, but I’m ordering you to go away.”

 

_ “Negative. Current order has higher rank.” _

 

Destin hissed angrily. No one had higher rank on this particular base other than the visiting General. That jerk. “Could I ask you to go, nicely?”

 

_ “Negative. I am to perform all housekeeping and care duties until seven standard days from now.” _ The droid did not move as it spoke, lights gently flashing green on it’s shiny hull. They were going straight into her eyes. How was she supposed to sleep with this thing blinking all over the room?

 

General Hux, the monster, had taken her datapad, so she stormed into her quarters, droid in tow, and smacked her holocomputer to life. It seemed to boot for years and she grumbled quietly while waiting. Her slippered foot tapped crinkly against the cold floor. 

 

Immediately as the program loaded, she wrote a message and sent it off with less hesitation than any of her messages prior to today.

 

_ GH- _

 

_ I request you revoke orders to this droid assigned to me. It is unnecessary and I can take care of myself. _

 

_ LCD _

 

She waited, further tapping, and a bing sounded a reply. It opened automatically.

 

_ LCD-  _

 

_ The droid is essential to your active recovery and is assigned to you until the date of your evaluation. Make full use of it. _

 

_ GH _

 

Well, that was a long winded way of saying no. She turned on the droid, sitting dutifully and irritatingly in the middle if her office room rug. 

 

_ “Do you require assistance into bed?” _

 

“No.” She snapped, and then reeled in her temper. It was a  _ droid _ , and wasteful of her currently limited emotional span to spend anger on a non-sentient machine. 

 

It rolled after her as she tottered to bed and fell in it with just enough grace to spare the front of her limbs, wrapped in new bandages just this morning. A good thing that she never had a set sleep schedule, as they had discharged her at 0900 and she planned to sleep the whole day. Maybe at 0900 tomorrow she would be alert enough to argue Hux down to releasing her from the useless baby-sitting machine.

 

_ “Do you require anything?” _ It asked.

 

“No. Silence. Sleep.”

 

_ “Acknowledged. You will be woken at 1500 for vitals.” _

 

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, already drifting, “go power down in the corner where I can’t see your damn lights through my eyelids.”

 

The droid did not reply, but she heard it wheel away, whirring quietly and then the distinctive sound of a shutdown sequence. Destin sighed, and let sleep pull her down.

 

-

 

Vitals time was an  _ affair _ . Destin, being fussy and still displeased with the droid, decided to demonstrate how useless it was. As it beeped to wake her, she rolled carefully put of bed and stood up.

 

_ “Please sit so I may take your vitals.” _

 

“I’d prefer to stand.”

 

_ “Please sit so I may take your vitals.” _

 

“Are you deaf? I said no.” She crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.

 

_ “Please sit so I may take your vitals.” _

 

“See,” she said, mostly to herself and the mental image of Hux she was producing for this exact purpose, “useless. It just asks the same thing until you- woah!”

 

With a whirring of tiny hydraulics and clicks and metallic sounds, the droid changed. She stepped back, almost tripping back into bed, as the droid lengthened in front of her eyes. Across its squat middle, panels disconnected and turned in and up, creating a column twice as wide as a spinal cord that lifted the head and arms of the little droid to settle at eye level to her. Actually, it may have even been taller. She squeaked unprofessionally. 

 

_ “Please stay standing so I may take your vitals.” _

 

“Yeah, okay…” she muttered, still shocked.

 

The droid did its business, poking and prodding and sticking things into her ears and eyes and mouth. When it was done she plopped back down onto the bed without thinking, and she watched the droid reconfigure back into its shorter, more sturdy self. It looked like a strange cross between an astromech and an FX series, but she had never seen either droid do that before.

 

_ “Vitals satisfactory. Please extend your limbs for bandage replacement.” _

 

What would happen if she said no? It would alert medbay mostly likely. Or Hux. No, she couldn’t have that. There had to be another way. She stuck out her arms, acquiescing for the moment, thinking. Finally, while it was halfways through rewrapping the second arm, she said, “Droid...systems assessment.”

 

It finished its job with the easy movement of its twisting manipulator, wrap snug and evenly spaced.  _ “FS-series medical droid: Systems assessment underway. Verbal confirmations?” _

 

“Yes.” Let’s see what else this thing could do.

 

-

 

Two days later, Hux finally came to check on her. 

 

“Destin,” he said loudly as he entered, not bothering to knock. She rolled her eyes to the view of nobody. 

 

“In here,” she called back, and listened as his heavy winter boots clanked across the metal floor towards her. 

 

“I received a message from medbay saying the droid went offline twice, they assumed the first was a fluk-” Hux stopped short, in words and in body, upon entering her room. 

 

To be fair, her room was a sight to see. She was sat in the middle of her rug, little metal bits and wires and tools scattered in the tall dark fabric like animals in the savannah grass. The droid was ahead of her, sitting between her splayed legs in their regulation nightpants, offline. He was lucky, five minutes earlier it's guts had been all over the place, but now she was almost done. 

 

“Did you know these droids are extremely susceptible to tampering?” She turned a final screw into place lazily. “Any disgruntled patient could just a throw a blanket on one from behind and do whatever they wanted.”

 

It seemed as if she’d stolen his words. Flickers of emotion crossed his face before he said, “I was not aware you were knowledgeable on droid maintenance.”

 

A series of beeps, and the droid booted back on with a pattern of orange lights across its chassis. It immediately adjusted into full height, and then began twisting its manipulator in a way that could be seen as thoughtful.  _ “Greetings, I am the (...) model, mark III.” _

 

“Mark II tried to take my temperature with a surgical knife!” She chirped. 

 

“Destin…” he said, then sighed. “I’m going to regret asking, but why exactly did you find it prudent to rip apart a medical droid and rewire it?”

 

Looking up at him from the floor was strange, but not all that bad. He seemed even taller, if that were possible, and the angle of the lighting threw his face slightly into relief as opposed to the flat look of this dark clothes. He was imposing, but like a statue, and she got the urge to pull him down to the floor with her if only to make him look more alive. 

 

“I told you I didn’t need it. I’m fine, though I am starting to appreciate the rest time. And I was being serious about the tampering, I decided a few upgrades would make it less annoying while I’m stuck with it, and when it goes back to medbay it will be more helpful.”

 

As she spoke, the droid wheeled forward on a steadier but more versatile three wheels, and stopped in front of the General. He gave it a raised eyebrow, and the droid quickly extended its ‘spine’ higher to meet him face to face.

 

“Careful of pointy bits.” Destin said, getting up. She thought she got the bug out, but she’d surely lose her job, and maybe her life, if her pet project stabbed a General, no matter how kind to her he may be behind closed doors. 

 

_ “Your eyes indicate fatigue. Recommendation for eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and human physical contact.” _

 

“ _ Destin,” _ Hux said warningly, and she rushed forward to shut it off. She had also installed a handy switch on its back for just that purpose. 

 

Once the little orange lights faded, she laughed awkwardly. “Ooh, I didn’t think it would do that. I updated the program to more actively diagnose based on the current symptoms lists in the New Republic medical library. It’s not connected to the network, obviously. Current isn’t exactly the right word, actually, it's outdated by five years but I didn’t think that was any worse than what it was already running.”

 

“You simply had that?”

 

“Well, no.” She shuffled. Always with her stupid mouth, saying more that she’d intended. “It was in my cached drive, from when I was part of the Republic. My mother was a surgeon, and before I left I copied over their email servers.”

 

“Why?” He appeared genuinely interested, head poking around the droid’s, and Destin hoped she wasn’t still out on the line. 

 

“Because, I thought it may come in handy. You know I went through a solid week of interrogation before I was allowed to enroll in training? I wanted as much potential chips as possible to play with.”

 

“I’m aware of the practice,” he said slowly.

 

“They didn’t need it, so I just packed up my portable drives into storage and left them there. I hadn’t opened them until I got posted here, there wasn’t really space on the  _ Finalizer.” _

 

“Amazing…” he said quietly, then recomposed himself, stepping around the offline piece of machinery. “Let the droid do its job. I won’t come down here every time it goes offline.”

 

“Please don’t, that would be silly. I told you I was fine.” 

 

“That remains to be seen,” he replied, “I'll send a message to medbay to cease maintenance checks on the droid. Don’t break it.”

 

Stars, he was acting like a parent. “Do you not trust me?”

 

He scoffed, “I don’t trust anyone not to do something stupid. You simply let me down less than others. Get back in bed.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “Yes,  _ sir _ .”

 

Hux grasped her arm when she stumbled, legs tired from sitting so long. 

 

“Don’t say I told you so.”

 

“I wasn’t.” Their faces were close, and he wrapped a careful arm across her back as he guided her to bed. She tried very hard not to focus on it. “But if I  _ was _ I would say ‘I told you to rest, because you’re still recovering’ and you would likely reply with ‘Of course, my mistake, I’ll do as medbay says because they know what they’re talking about, and so do you, Hux’.”

 

She turned her head just enough to look at him, and said “I don’t sound like that.” He turned them, depositing her on the edge of the bed. “I don’t even talk like that.” 

 

“Of course not. Creative license.”

 

Destin couldn’t help it, she snorted. 

 

Like a mother hen Hux waited patiently for her to put herself under the covers. When she looked up at him from the pillow he relented, stepping away. “Does that thing still work?” He pointed to the droid, still standing spindly and dark in the middle of the floor.

 

“Yeah. Yes. Definitely.”

 

-

 

“Mark  _ V? _ ” 

 

Destin stood to attention, the droid standing behind her left shoulder. It was again in full height, a towering six foot six inches, beanpole-like in frame and lights now a cool blue that did not flash but pulsed gently, and entirely quiet.

 

“Yes, sir.” She said, trying not to smile.

 

“Where are you getting the  _ parts _ ?” He asked, just as incredulous as his first question.

 

“You would be surprised how many odds and ends we throw away on this project. But mostly I just reworked the original wiring. About half is just programming.”

 

“I,” she’d stolen his words again, and she counted that a victory, “I can’t let that thing go back to medbay. It is outside regulation.”

 

“It would be very helpful.” Destin replied. “You could do a trial run and see?”

 

“No. If it accidentally kills someone you will be under scrutiny, as will I for letting it go back in when it has been compromised. The project doesn’t need more delay.”

 

“It’s not going to kill someone.” She muttered, and straightened up at the inpatient look he gave her. It felt better to be in her uniform, after two weeks. Granted, she only remembered a week and a half, but still. “But it will be as you say, sir.”

 

Destin was pushing it, she knew that. But she also knew that he was used to it, and while she was giving him sass, they were alone in the hallway. Just past Hux’s shoulder was the door to the evaluation chambers, and she was scheduled to be in it for the next five hours. She had no doubts of her success, she was ready to go back to work.

 

“It can’t go  _ with  _ you, either.”

 

“Oh.” She said, and finally made the full realization that the droid had follower her to the eval. “I didn’t intend it to, my apologies.”

 

“What will you do with it then?” The General asked, looking past her and up into its metal face. She’d made the equivalent of eyes on it by cutting out circles and welding in oversized washers, which she then put more blue lights in the center of. The effect was haunting but strangely aware. She didn’t blame him for staring, but once they were in she didn’t have the will to take them out. Not with it  _ looking _ at her.

 

“Incinerator?” She asked cheerily. 

 

The droid beeped angrily, or she perceived it as so. It was a wordless protest. 

 

Hux rubbed a hand over his face in his classic private display of frustration. “Can you find use of it?”

 

She thought it over. “I suppose so, if it's manipulators perform delicately in a human body, I don’t see why they can’t do the same in a wall panel. It would need reprogramming.”

 

“Send it back to your quarters then.” She turned to give it the order, but he continued, so she paused. “You will assume full responsibility of it. I can’t have a rogue droid on my base.”

 

“I can do that, sir.” The droid let out a small whistle and she shooed it away. “Back to my quarters, and power down in your corner.”

 

The droid rolled away, and she turned back to see that amusement she’d come to expect in his eyes. “It has a corner?”

 

“The lights are bright.” 

 

-

 

She passed the evaluation with flying colors, as she expected. She'd been around enough explosions, though none so close until recently, that she wasn’t going to be scared off what might be the biggest project of her life. 

 

The droid was reprogrammed promptly, and thankfully it still only spoke in binary, but something had gone wrong with its personality programming. Namely, it wasn't supposed to  _ have _ any. It was supposed to use the most basic greetings and most direct sentence structure to communicate informations. Maybe there had been a contradictory line of code in the engineering programming, but mother of moons she didn't know how to fix it. She was trained for starships, not droids. Clearly her illness had made her go a bit insane for that week when she had considered tinkering with it a good idea. 

 

“FS, get in the kriffing corner!”

 

_ “I need to check your vitals, and my name is Felix.”  _

 

Destin groaned in annoyance. “You don’t  _ need _ a name, you  _ aren’t sentient!” _

 

_ “Negative. Please present for vitals.” _

 

_ “ _ No!” She stomped her foot. “You listen to me, I have the papers that say so right here.” Truthfully, she did. The flimsiplast was entirely unnecessary as the same record shad been forwarded to her datapad, but the medbay had sent them over too. She shook the papers at him. “FS-7, medical droid, bill of sale and deed of ownership. Right here.”

 

_ “Please present for vitals, Lieutenant Commander.” _

 

It felt like the droid’s purple (she’d changed it while reprogramming on a whim, it felt like a good way to identify changes in marks) eyes were seeing far more than they should have been able to. It also appeared that it felt the need to be in extended form  _ all the time.  _ She was considering removing that functionality, as much as it pleased her, if it was going to use it against her like this. The droid  _ towered _ over her. 

 

“You aren’t even a medical droid anymore, you’re for engineering! You’re a technician droid! This is outrageous.” Destin had never seen such an obstinate droid. She must have messed up the programming, there were no ghosts in the machines  so to speak. Droids were wiring and lights and hard drives, nothing more. 

  
The droid looked at her, stock still light pulsing like the movement of breathing. Huffily, she stuck out her arm. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for being with me, guys. I have been going through a lot of hard times, and removing myself from reality by writing these little fics means a whole lot to me. That fact that people _like_ this mess? Means so much more. This is one of the best fandoms ever.   
>  If you want to know more about Destin, I am always available on tumblr: vmprsm.tumblr.com


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